Later that night Kennedy got on television to tell the U.S that the Soviet Union had secret installed nuclear missiles in Cuba that were aimed at American cities. Kennedy didn’t know how to get the missiles removed without starting a nuclear was with the Soviets. If this were to happen tens of millions on both sides would be killed. Communism was a threat and it was coming to America in 1959 when Castro staged a revolution in Cuba and became allies with the Soviet Union. Khrushchev thought that by moving nuclear missiles to Cuba, he would not only help close the missile gay with the U.S but that it would also prevent another American invasion of Cuba.
Following the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961, Fidel Castro sought even more support from the USSR to prevent any further attempts to overthrow him. This security came in the form of Soviet nuclear missiles. From an orthodox point of view this has been viewed as an act of aggression by the USSR as it brought Soviet missiles in range of continental America, however from a revisionist perspective this can be seen as a reaction to the USA's deployment of nuclear weapons throughout Europe, particularly of Jupiter missile installations based in Turkey1. Soviet aims in Cuba were defined as bridging the missile gap between the USA and USSR, defending socialism were it was threatened and to use the missiles as a bargaining tool in international politics2. On October 15th 1962 American U-2 planes obtained photographic evidence of Soviet medium range missiles on Cuban territory.
In this essay it will be argued that indeed the Cuban Missile Crisis was the point of highest tension during the Cold War and also that Kennedy benefited the most from the outcome as opposed to Khrushchev who was the leader of the USSR. Firstly the Cuban Missile Crisis began on the 16th October 1962 when an American U2 spy plane photographed Soviet missiles sites in Cuba. The fact that the USSR had responded to appeals for help from Cuba following the Bay of Pigs invasion was a large problem for the USA and straight away increased the tensions of the Cold War. It was an issue because Cuba was lead by Castro, a communist who had already overthrown the pro- American government in 1961 and so he was motivated to possibly harm the United States of America and working with Khrushchev gave him the means to do so. Furthermore Cuba was only 90 miles off the coast of America, which meant these missiles, particularly the long-ranged weapons could reach major American cities.
Truman made some decisions that ultimately had a huge effect in the build up to the cold war. When plans were made for the division of power after WWII, Truman originally opposed America ganging up against Russia and said he would keep the agreements that were made with them. But Truman wanted to appear decisive and tough and he was not prepared to accept any deal if he could not get the majority of it his way. When Truman went to the Potsdam Conference in July 1945, he went there only to advance American Interest and he believed that the atomic bomb was the way to do this. Though this treat he was able to have his way at the Yalta conference.
Chiefs of Staff and CIA’s stance: to use coercion (launch of pre-emptive airstrikes) and implement a threat strategy against the Russians. Challenging the legitimate power of a suspected-lukewarm President, they tried to influence him, by using negative framing effects and implicit threat: Kennedy would be made accountable for the death of million US citizens if he implemented a naval blockade that would cause annihilation of strategic surprise and first nuclear strikes by cornered Russians. However, having read “the guns of August” book, Kennedy was aware of the escalation risks of a threat strategy with low probabilities that: a. the airstrikes would remain “surgical” b. all USSR missiles could be 100% destroyed making the consequent retaliation risk insufferable. 2. Tusk and McNamara’s position: the implementation of quarantine.
Visual aids were not used in his speech because it is unnecessary and we couldn’t identify any specific statistics used. In his speech, he urged the audience to maintain friendship with other countries. He used the cooperation with Soviet Union to limit nuclear arms as an example to show the friendship between United States and the other nations. To illustrate his love and commitment to the country, he talked about the time when he first became the president and the promises he made to himself and to the country back then. To make his speech clearer to the audience, he defined his duty to persevere, as to make every possible effort to complete the term of office to which the Americans at that time elected him.
He has to make assumptions why all this happened, what should be done to stop Group Six from accomplishing their mission, and if the bombers will not be stopped and the bombs will be dropped what should be done to even the situation. All of these were very essential to the problem, but the first thing that President had to do is to assure Soviet Union that the created situation was just a “mechanical failure” and US did not try to provoke the war. The first decision that President made was ordering to destroy the Group Six before they enter Russian border. President tried to order the bombers to turn back and cancel the bombing of Moscow; however, General Grady did not fulfill the order. It was a hard decision to order to destroy the American bombers but President did not have any choice.
I agree that the enabling act was the most important factor in Hitler’s consolidation of power because the enabling act allowed Hitler to pass decrees without the president’s involvement it also made Hitler a legal dictator he has absolute power. Hitler was still not secure as he could not remove his opponents like the civil service who could undermine the Weimar republic also Hindenburg could still sack Hitler at anytime. For the next 4 years if Hitler wanted a new law he could just pass it and because of enabling act he didn’t need to consult the Reichstag. He intimidated the Reichstag into passing the enabling act by using the S.A. the Nazis won their largest even share of the votes and with support of the smaller nationalist parties Hitler had the majority of seats in the Reichstag one of the Nazis main aims. However the Reichstag fire plus emergency decrees was also another important factor in Hitler’s rise to power because they were able to take advantage of the situation when the Reichstag build burned down as he was able to then blame the communists for this a declared that it was the start of a communist uprising and that he needed to act and got Hindenburg to grant him the emergency decrees to help deal with this uprising.
JFK did what he could to ease the tension between the two nations. America removed missiles from Turkey, therefore the soviets removed their missiles from Cuba. What are the implications to the more recent interpretation of international politics? What makes a leader a strong leader? A leader that’s strong doesn’t necessary have to and or want to go to war all the time.
However, the opposing side was strongly worried that the United States government was going to have a loss of power. The opposing side had a goal to make the debate drug out as long as possible, by having long speeches about how the Bill angered them. Barry Goldwater stated that he believed that the United States government should not get involved in the employment area because there is “no constitutional basis for the exercise of federal regulatory.” Also stated in this selection Senator Sam Ervin says that it would ruin the relationships with the state and the federal government. Last but not least Senator John Stennis pointed out mainly that citizens should be able to their own businesses or property as that wished upon. (Source 6) Filibusters was another main event that took part in of the passing of the bill.